Category Archives: Wine & Food

Long Weekend Wines

Oh boy, this week seemed to last 2 weeks. But the long weekend is finally here. For years this weekend has been called ‘the unofficial kick off to Summer’ but being from Newfoundland, I’ve seen everything from snow on this weekend to cold temperatures and sometimes even heat. It doesn’t matter, it’s a 3-day weekend and I’m going to enjoy every minute. To my camping friends, stay warm! Here’s some wines to warm up your May long weekend.

I have to share a brand new chicken recipe with you. So good, and my friend Angie enjoyed it as well. There is this recipe site out of Newfoundland called Rock Recipes and the creator, Barry, features wonderful easy-to-make recipes. It’s been called one of the best food blogs in Canada by the National Post.

Chicken Satay with a Peanut Sriracha sauce.

It was so good, and I was out of Sriracha, so I used hot sauce instead. It was so yummy and so different. Not only was the chicken glazed with it, I kept the remainder to use as a dipping sauce.

You can find the recipe for that delicious chicken dish here. And check out Rock Recipes at http://www.rockrecipes.com. You won’t be disappointed.

Now, Let’s talk some wine. It is after all, a long weekend. First, a treat wine.

My nephew stayed with me for a couple of days and bought me this bottle of wine as a gift. Enjoyed it over two evenings. The name “Marne 180” refers to the marne soils that the vineyards were planted, and marne is a combination of clay and limestone. It is said clay provides richness, while limestone provides finesse. Both come together in this wonderful Amarone. It is a bit of a treat at $52 a bottle, but everyone needs a treat once in a while.

This actually reflects some of my plans for the long weekend. Wine and naps. I’m also getting together with friends, and last night did some karaoke. Here’s a wine that’s more along everyone’s budget.

The label is a little hard to read in this picture, but it’s called Beauty in Chaos and it’s a Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington State. It was so good, and its on clearance now for just $18 a bottle. Get it while you can. This was a 2017 so I would advise to let it breathe, or decant it before you drink it. It has, after all, been sitting in the bottle for 7 years. It needs to open up a bit. I shared this with a lady last night at our karaoke and by then it had been opened up for an hour, and she loved it as well. To my Newfoundland friends and readers, it’s on sale there too for $18.49 a bottle. Enjoy!

Enjoy the long weekend and stay safe. Cheers

Darlene

May The Wine Be With You

It is Saturday, May 4th. I’m sure all over Social Media you’ll see ‘May the Forth Be with You. I am changing it up a bit. May the Wine be with you.

I am also here to tell you the myth is true. The older you get, the faster time flies. Hard to believe another week has flown by and it’s May month. I’ve had a bit of an interesting wine week. Good friends of mine, friends that are like family, were opening a special bottle of wine, and invited me down to enjoy it with them.

My friends Sharon & Max, have several bottles given to them years ago, and were wondering if it’s still good. The one thing I am good at is sniffing out skunky wines. This wine was gorgeous. Bordeaux wines tend to be wines that age very well. As a matter of fact, I find they are much better than the newer Bordeaux wines. This was smooth with no harshness associated with some Bordeaux wines. This wine was hard to do research on. Like all Bordeaux wines, it is a blend with 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. It was such a treat.

I feel like my readers know Riley, who graduates from St. FX this weekend, but his brother Brady came down for the graduation. And I had the treat of having him and his girlfriend Allison for a couple of nights. Brady works at IOC mines in Labrador City and I haven’t seem him since Christmas. He is so handy, I swear his can fix anything and everything. He’s a big boy who loves to eat, and I love cooking for him because he loves everything.

One night I cooked steaks, chicken kebabs, glazed chicken drumsticks, roasted potatoes and a Caesar salad. There was no food left over. He’s 6’3″ and about 285 lbs. He told me he loved a big burger. I also love big burgers. This one was a new recipe. Carmelized onions with a caramel balsamic glaze, brie (first time I’ve ever used Brie in a burger) and Provolone cheese. Plus of course bacon. I mean, what’s a burger without bacon. It was a hit. The only thing I would change, is that Provolone and Brie are both very light tasting cheeses. Nice and melty and creamy, but I’d also add a smoked cheddar.

This is the one I tend to keep on hand. It too is nice and melty (a new word) and adds a real nice smoky flavor.

Before I go, have you guys heard of Andy Hay from Andy’s East Coast Kitchen.

Andy competed on Master Chef Canada in Seasons 5 & 7. He’s from right here in Nova Scotia. I love his recipes. They are made for people like you and me. Easy with ingredients easy to find at our own grocery stores. Check out Andy’s website here.

Andy featured a recipe lately called bang bang chicken. It had this easy to make sauce.

There are 4 ingredients in this sauce, and it is so tasty with chicken. Mayonnaisse, Frank’s hot sauce, sweet Thai chili sauce and honey. You can make it spicier if you like, but I did it pretty mild. I event made a chicken sandwich and replaced my Miracle Whip with this sauce. Yummy.

Getting back to the beefy week I’ve had. If beef is on the menu, here’s a brand new wine I tried this past week. I really enjoyed it

This delicious wine hails from Spain, and is a blend Garnacha (the Spanish word for Grenache) and Syrah. Easy to drink, nice and full on the palate and a great price point at $17.75 a bottle. Wine critic James Suckling gave this wine 92 Points. Wow. A 92 Point wine for under $18. Definitely worth trying.

Before I go, I had to share the latest picture of Lexi. Just turned 10 months old and still growing. She’s a tank LOL

That’s it for me for this week. Thank you for reading along. Have a great weekend

Wines to Warm Up Your Spring

It’s been a pretty cold Spring so far in Nova Scotia. I really feel for my Newfoundland friends, who have seen snow recently. We haven’t received snow, it just feels like it. But I have a recipe for Asian pork chops and a brand new white and a brand new red wine to help warm up those chilly evenings.

Once you’ve beat Cancer, a little cold weather doesn’t bother me. I make the best of it with good food and good wine. I found a new marinade for pork chops and it was so good.

I put my centre cut pork chops in an old fashioned roaster. Seasoned with salt and pepper, and I added some of this marinade before cooking. And again just before they were done.

This simple marinade contains brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, soya sauce, sesame oil, garlic, honey, and I added some hoisin sauce. The hoisin is optional. I love it, I feel it adds depth of flavor. I forgot to take a picture once the pork chops were done. I was hungry, LOL and they looked and smelled so good.

I tried 2 new wines this week, first let me tell you about the white wine.

From local winery Benjamin Bridge, my friend Joan bought this bottle of Piquette to our Saturday get together. It’s made in a very unique way. They use upcycled Chardonnay pomace. From their website “The historic Piquette winemaking style adds water to gently pressed grape skins, extracting their full fragrance and flavour potential while providing a lower alcohol beverage (5.0%).” It might be light on alcohol but it was very flavorful with gorgeous citrus notes. And at $17 a bottle, a great value.

The new red I tried, is from Portugal.

I have to be honest, I don’t often head down the aisle featuring wines from Portugal. But I’ll be doing it more often, this wine was so good and such a great value. It’s a blend of 4 grapes. Touriga Nacional, the national grape of Portugal, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Aragonez. I had to look Aragonez up, as I’ve never heard of that grape, but I learned that it’s another name for Tempranillo. This $18 rich velvety wine was a great new find.

You know I like to end my blog with a little cuteness. My rescue kitty Gabriel loves to watch bird and squirrel videos on my laptop. As a matter of fact, when I bought out the laptop to write this blog this morning, Mr. Gabriel jumped up with me, hoping for some home entertainment.

Well that’s it for me for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Till next week, Cheers

It’s Official – I’m Cancer Free

I saw my cancer surgeon on Thursday, Dr. Kenyon, he’s awesome. When he removed my tumor, he took 5 tissue samples from the area, they all came back with no trace of cancer. Which means, he got it all during the surgery. I can’t convey how happy I am, absolutely elated. It’s been an incredible 17 months, and I want to send my thanks and love to all the readers of this blog who sent me love and good wishes. Your notes of encouragement were very important to me.

And how did I celebrate? My favorite meal, ribs, wings and rice. Normally I love adding corn but I’ve been avoiding corn for obvious reasons. And the wine I celebrated with. An Italian Ripasso by Sartori. You all know I love a Ripasso and this one is priced at $27 and so delicious. The ribs I had cooked the evening before, when I grilled burgers for a couple of my co-workers. I’m reintroducing beef to my diet, because it didn’t agree with me when I first got out of the hospital.

The celebrations continued last night with friends, wine and karaoke.

I even got up and did a number with my friend Raymond. We did a duet, I’m definitely not the best singer, but it’s all in good fun. We have a good building, I’ve been here 12 years and we do a lot of fun things together.

Now I have to tell you about a new find that is a spectacular value.

This is Hax Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile. Look at that gorgeous color, and it’s priced under $15 a bottle. Not a typo. $14.99 Beautiful well-structured full-bodied Cabernet and the tannins are just perfect, in my opinion. Not too strong but a great mouth feel. I had a glass before karaoke last night, but this is also a perfect BBQ wine.

You’ve heard of hangry (angry because you’re hungry), now there’s wangry! You have my permission to use this word.

Thank you so much to all of you for reading my blogs. I know they haven’t been consistent this year, but I appreciate everyone that has followed me on my journey.

Love Darlene

It’s Been A While

Hi Everyone. It’s been a while hasn’t it. Well, it’s been quite the time for me. On Tuesday, February 20th at 7:30 in the morning I got wheeled into surgery. Honestly, I had no idea how big the surgery was going to be.

I was in hospital for 5 days, and I couldn’t wait to get out and get home and continue my recovery here. Had a couple of set backs, some stitches imploded and left me with a wide gaping would, and I ended up back in the ER. Still having the VON coming in 3 days a week. No more pictures, I promise. Believe me, you do not want to see my scars and wounds. So I’m not quite fully recovered, but I am recovered enough to enjoy a glass of wine.

Last evening also marked the first day I fired up both grills.

Notice the fog? We’ve had gloomy weather, fog and rain for 3 or 4 days now. Did some baby back ribs and chicken on the wood pellet grill and did some crispy potato wedges on the regular BBQ

The baby back ribs turned out perfect. I even had enough left over for tonight. I was so hungry when they were done I just ate. I do have a couple of pieces for this evening’s supper.

And the perfect wine to go with this?

This beautiful Cabernet Sauvignon from Raymond Vineyards in California is on clearance right now. The Raymond family arrived in Napa Valley in 1933 and became connected to the famous Beringer family by marriage a few years later. This easy-to-drink Cabernet Sauvignon is so good and priced under $20 right now. Rich fruit, softer tannins and food-friendly.

Before I go a little cuteness.

Remember when Riley picked up Lexi from the breeder the end of August last year. Well, Lexi has grown a little

Weighing in at 71 lbs, Lexi turns 9 months old on Monday. Yep, she is still a puppy. And loves her sister Maggie, who is just 65 lbs.

I hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend. Thanks for reading as I share my cancer journey. Take care!